


What Comes Before the Fall?

by YourFriendlyNeighborhoodArtist



Series: We Bow to No One [1]
Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: (not that Apollo would mind), Gen, Icarus does not try to sleep with the sun, In a surprising twist-, We all know how this ends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-25 21:43:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12044874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourFriendlyNeighborhoodArtist/pseuds/YourFriendlyNeighborhoodArtist
Summary: There are no gods, Icarus knows. Now that it's time for him and his father to escape, he is even more sure of their nonexistence. His father may be willing to throw some feathers on wax and fly on a pray, but Icarus is not. And Icarus will rise to the challenge of saving them.What would the old stories be like if there were no gods running around and interfering?





	What Comes Before the Fall?

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first posted story ever, and my first story in eight years. Please, be kind. I'm too tired to deal with more stress. Enjoy!

Icarus smiles as he runs his hands over the walls of his father’s workshop. They are smooth with years of fire, smoke, and many questionable liquids caressing their surface.   
They have been his home for years.  
Soon, they will no longer be his prison.   
Daedalus mutters to himself in the corner as he works on their escape. His fingers quiver in excitement as he works on the second glider- Icarus’s glider. Freedom is so close for the first time in years.   
Icarus watches and smiles. His own excitement burns inside of him, but he is the son of the best inventor to walk across the earth. Over a quarter of the inventions crowding the workshop are his. He knows better than to rush forward.   
He is young, but Icarus is no fool.   
For now, he smiles as the smell of burning wax fills the air around him.   
He wonders if this is what the sun smells like.   
~  
His father is the greatest inventor Icarus has ever heard of. But even the greatest inventors are restricted by the laws of nature.   
Humans were not meant to fly. This is a fact that all men know.   
After all, humans have no wings.   
So, his father endeavored to create them some for their escape.   
Icarus studies the designs as his father fitfully sleeps on the bed (years of captivity have not been kind for either of them. Icarus has never slept more than few hours every other day). He sees the flaws in an instant.   
The feathers would allow too much wind through. There is no anchorage points other than their own limbs. The flexibility and small human tremors of their arms would not keep the wings in the position to allow them to fly.   
With these plans, Icarus falls.   
(It never occurs to him that Daedalus falls as well. Icarus would be the first to leave their prison, and thus the first to fall. His father’s feet would still be on the ground as Icarus grapples with air.)  
Icarus is young, but he has been drawing mechanical designs since he was first given paper. By the light of the flickering candle, he draws up new designs that fix these problems.   
Icarus draws, Daedalus sleeps, and the smell of burning wax fills the room.  
Icarus is entranced and not even his father’s voice can draw him out of it.  
~  
Daedalus changes some of Icarus’s design.   
Some of the material cannot be secured in the quantities necessary without raising some suspicion. Besides, it will be quicker and work just as well this way, the older inventor says.   
Gone are the metal wires securing the sheets to the wood. Scoffed at is the suggestion of rope instead. Gone is the parachute that Icarus wanted both to wear.   
Gone are the safety precautions.   
His father believes that the goddess Athena will keep them safe, and every night he prays to her.   
Icarus smiles and refrains from telling his father that he is an idiot for taking away their concrete safety measures for belief.   
(Icarus is young, but he is no fool. If the gods were real, Athena would not be the one watching their journey. She holds court over wisdom, strategy, and knowledge. Their plan reeks of desperation and ill-fitting ideas. No, if any gods were to be watching their escape, it would be Hades.  
Icarus is young, but even he knows the ruler of the Underworld would be the kinder of the two options.)  
Icarus keeps his smile as the smell of wax wafts through the workshop as his father replaces safety for a quick fix.   
He feels like he is choking on the smell, but his smile stays in place. After all, Icarus has had years of experience with his youth being blamed for wanting to do things better and not in the traditional way.  
~  
The first glider – Daedalus’ glider – is complete. The inventor is high on giddiness and sleeps the sleep of the hopeful for the first time in years.   
Icarus smiles, as he covers his father up with the one blanket the two share.   
He is happy that his father is finally resting, but he himself cannot.   
Excitement can allow mistakes to happen, so Icarus spends his night examining his father’s work. Where he finds mistakes, he fixes.   
He loves his father too much to watch him fall.   
He loves his father too much to point out his inadequacy.   
Icarus tends to the mistakes quietly, by candle light. When there are none left, he adds more wax to where the wood and sheets meet.   
Daedalus will not fall.   
(Icarus swears to check his own glider as soon as it is done.  
He is young, but Icarus does not want to die.)  
The smell of wax fills his nose, but Icarus keeps working anyway.   
The burns along his fingers are worth it if he can keep his father alive.  
~  
While Daedalus works on Icarus’s glider, Icarus allows himself to rest.   
He dreams that night, as he has not done so for years.   
His mother is holding him, and where they touch he is warm. His father is laughing, and the sound sends tingles into Icarus’s belly.   
Light filters in, and Icarus cannot bring himself to open his eyes.   
For the first time since his mother’s death, he is warm.   
Icarus is young, and all he wants is for this dream to be real. For his father to be happy. For his mother to be alive. For the sun to grace them. For his own smile to be real.   
In his dream, Mother tells him of the river she grew up playing in, the forest she used to hide in, and the stars she used to fall asleep counting.   
Soon, Icarus will be free. He hopes to visit his mother’s home and see if he can’t find more scattered pieces of her there.   
The smell is the only part of this dream Icarus would wish away. It smells like burning wax and Icarus has had enough of the smell.   
Soon, much too soon, the smell of wax grows too strong to ignore.   
Icarus opens his eyes and is engulfed by light.   
(He wonders why he can feel a smile on his lips as he wakes up, when all he feels like doing is crying.)  
~  
Daedalus has finished Icarus’s glider when he was sleeping. The sheets are fastened to the wooden frame by wax, there is no parachute, and the bar Icarus is to hold on to has no cushion on it. Icarus sees little of himself in the end product.  
His father urges them to make their escape now. The wind is in their favor and would allow them to glide to a boat that may offer them safety, he claims. Icarus sees the impatience in his eyes and the excited tremor in his hands, however.  
Icarus does not get fix any mistakes on his glider before he is pushed to the edge of the cliff.   
Still, he prays to no god when he takes his step off the cliff, smile in place.  
(Icarus is young, but he is no fool. Gods don’t exist, and if they did, they only worked towards their own means anyway.   
He may be worth something in a few years, but for now he has nothing to offer them for his safety.)  
~  
Icarus falls. As he falls, he hears his father’s warning echo in his ears.   
Fly too close to the sea, and the wax is washed away. Fly too close to the sun, and the wax melts.   
(Where’s the balance? Icarus doesn’t know. Perhaps he is young and foolish for this, but he doubts the older and wiser know either.)  
When the wind catches his sheets, no one in more surprised than Icarus.   
The smile on his face feels slightly more real, as he tilts his glider to better catch the wind.   
For the first time since his father’s workshop became home, Icarus feels young.   
His heart pumps, not to survive but to live; his eyes pick up the different shades of blue in the sky; and he can hear things that aren’t mechanical.   
Icarus laughs, and more importantly, he soars.   
~  
Icarus and Daedalus have been in the air for a very short period of time before reality kicks in.   
Daedalus is laughing as rides the winds ahead. He looks – younger. Full of life. Like the tiny glimpses Icarus has of the life before King Midas, before Mother died. Before their imprisonment in the Labyrinth and their subsequent release back to their duties as Midas’s mechanics.   
Back to the same four walls they would never leave alive.   
Icarus lingers behind his father, happy enough to let the sun warm his skin.   
It is then, happy for the first time in years, that feels the faint, new tremors making their way through his glider.   
A glance up confirms his worse fears. Where wax holds sheets and wood together, the two begin to separate.   
Daedalus had not added enough wax to last. Icarus’s glider was falling apart.   
(But Daedalus’ glider would not – Icarus had made sure of that.)  
Icarus is young, but he is not a fool.   
He knows what this means.   
With little thought, Icarus soars upwards. He can hear his father screaming at him, but he won’t stop.   
Let Daedalus think that it was Icarus’s youth and foolishness that killed him. It is better than Daedalus finding out that he is to blame for the death of his son. Icarus would rather his name be cursed out then have his father blame himself.  
The smell of wax fills the air, and soon Icarus is falling again.   
The smile on his face was real this time.   
The sun is warm, the waves sound nice, and Icarus feels young.   
(He just might be the fool. He saw how love and trust killed his mother, and he chose to follow in her footsteps anyways.   
Icarus wonders if he’ll see her in the Underworld.   
He might just pray to Hades for it.)  
~  
(Icarus dies young, with his youth and hubris to blame. Daedalus mourns his son, but he does not mourn Icarus. In the end, he never figures out that it was his hands and mind that killed Icarus.   
Icarus falls, and the rest of his story – the beginning, the middle, the man – is forgotten.   
Icarus falls, but who was Icarus?)


End file.
